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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The subject of that video has been very much on my mind today, broadly understood.\u00a0 The funeral for the missionary grandson<\/a> of a friend and former department colleague and chairman was held this afternoon.\u00a0 My friend spoke.\u00a0 He acknowledged that he had never been through a worse nightmare than this one.\u00a0 But he spoke powerfully and faithfully.\u00a0 He pled with those in his audience not to make their temporary separation from his grandson a permanent one.\u00a0 He also cited Doctrine and Covenants 59 and, in doing so, he taught me something very important:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n First, though, some background:\u00a0 Polly Knight, the wife of Joseph Knight Sr., traveled with a group of Saints on the nearly 900-mile journey from Kirtland, Ohio, to Jackson County, Missouri.\u00a0 The Knight family \u2014 who are among my maternal ancestors; I descend through her son Joseph Jr. \u2014 had been turned out of their\u00a0 their lodgings in Kirtland, to which they had recently gathered from their home in Colesville, New York, by Leman Copley.\u00a0 So they determined to go further west, to the newly designated land of Zion.\u00a0 On the way to Missouri, Sister Knight became gravely ill.\u00a0 However, she would not agree to stop traveling, declaring that her greatest desire was to set foot on the land of Zion and to be buried there. Her son Newel later recorded that, at one point in their journey, he actually \u201cbought lumber to make a coffin in case she should die before we arrived at our place of destination\u2014so fast did she fail. But the Lord gave her the desire of her heart, and she lived to stand upon that land.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Polly Knight died less than two weeks after her arrival in Zion, in Jackson County, Missouri.\u00a0 She was the first Latter-day Saint to die in Zion.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n On the day that she died, 7 August 1831, the Prophet Joseph Smith received the revelation that we know today as Section 59 of the Doctrine and Covenants.\u00a0 Joseph had been close to the Knights since even before the actual founding of the Church, and I expect that her death troubled him.\u00a0 The revelation opens with these words:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Behold, blessed, saith the Lord, are they who have come up unto this land with an eye ingle to my glory, according to my commandments.\u00a0 For those that live shall inherit\u00a0the earth, and those that die shall rest from all their labors, and their works shall follow them; and they shall receive a crown\u00a0in the mansions\u00a0of my Father, which I have prepared for them.\u00a0 Yea, blessed are they whose feet stand upon the land of Zion, who have obeyed my gospel.<\/strong>\u00a0 (Doctrine and Covenants 59:1-3)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I hope, someday, to meet Polly Knight, my heroic and faithful ancestor.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But how did my friend teach me?\u00a0 What did he teach me?\u00a0 He connected the death of Polly Knight, to which the first verses of Section 59 seem to refer, with one of the final verses of the section:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And in nothing doth man offend\u00a0God, or against none is his wrath kindled, save those who confess not\u00a0his hand in all things, and obey not\u00a0his commandments.\u00a0<\/strong> (Doctrine and Covenants 59:21)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This got me to thinking of a very famous passage in the Old Testament book of Job:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.<\/strong>\u00a0 (Job 1:21)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I also thought of the vision granted to President Joseph F. Smith on 3 October 1918 \u2014 one of the greatest given in human history \u2014 and especially of these passages:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n As I pondered\u00a0over these things which are written, the eyes of my understanding\u00a0were opened, and the Spirit of the Lord rested upon me, and I saw the hosts of the dead,\u00a0both small and great.\u00a0 And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality;\u00a0 and who had offered sacrifice in the similitude\u00a0of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer\u2019s name.\u00a0 All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope\u00a0of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. . . .\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>I beheld that the faithful elders\u00a0of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead.<\/strong>\u00a0 (Doctrine and Covenants 138:11-14, 57)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, as my friend spoke, I found myself thinking of a scriptural passage that had no particular impact upon me for many decades but that, in recent years, has become one of the most important verses to me in all of the canon:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy\u00a0state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed\u00a0in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.<\/strong>\u00a0 (Mosiah 2:41)<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some of you may perhaps be aware that I\u2019ve also been involved in another film that will premiere next week.\u00a0 A new article about it has just gone up in Meridian Magazine<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWitnesses: New Movie and Website Examine Testimonial Evidence for the Book of Mormon\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m grateful to Jonn Claybaugh, who has, once again, contributed a helpful piece to the Interpreter Foundation website:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Come, Follow Me<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 D&C Study and Teaching Helps Lesson 23, May 31\u2013June 6: D&C 60\u201362 \u2014\u00a0\u201cAll Flesh Is in Mine Hand\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And there is also this:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for\u00a0Come, Follow Me<\/em>\u00a0Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 23,\u00a0\u201cAll Flesh Is in Mine Hand\u201d<\/em>\u00a0on D&C 60-62, featured Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen, and Mark J. Johnson. That roundtable has now been extracted from the 25 April 2021 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show, purified of commercial and other interruptions.\u00a0 The complete program may be accessed at\u00a0https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreter-radio-show-april-25-2021\/<\/a>. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard live on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at\u00a0ktalkmedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n